Locker Mirror Craft
Have your kid make a mini-mirror as stunning as she is!
Submitted by
Traci
Traci
Invite your kid to craft a snazzy mirror for her locker. She'll be able to peek to see if she's got any food caught in her braces in style!
- A 12-inch-square cork tile:Buy one at an office supply store or online at OfficeMax.
- Small, decorative mirror (4-5 inches wide):Find these at the crafts store in different shapes like circles, stars, triangles or octagons.
- Craft foam:Any color your kid likes.
- 2 rolls of 1-inch ribbon:Let your kid pick colors that coordinate with the craft foam.
- Decorative pushpins:Check the office supply aisle at Target or Wal-Mart.
- Scissors
- Embellishments:Rhinestone flowers, buttons, scrapbooking decorations, etc.
- Hot-glue gun:Kids and hot glue don't mix, so make sure you do all the gluing.
- 4 magnetic circles:Something strong enough to hold the weight of the mirror.
Have your kid cut out a circle of craft foam 1 inch larger than the mirror on all sides.
Hot-glue the mirror onto the craft foam circle.
Next, help your kid trim the cork tile down to about 8 to 10 inches square, depending on the size of her locker. (A standard school locker is about 10 to 12 inches wide.)
Have your kid cut a length of ribbon long enough to go from corner to corner of the cork tile, leaving an extra 2 inches on each side to wrap around the tile.
Using the same ribbon, have her cut another strip of ribbon to fit beside the first ribbon, leaving about a 2-inch space between the ribbon strips.
Continue with a third strip of ribbon. (She's making diagonal stripes across half of the tile.)
As she places the ribbons, have her secure them with pushpins along the edges of the tile.
When all of the ribbons are in place, turn the cork tile over and hot-glue the excess ribbon to the back. Remove the pushpins.
Now, using the contrasting ribbon, have her repeat the process with the second color of ribbon, starting from one of the adjacent corners.
This time, instead of going across the entire cork tile, have her cut the ribbon just long enough to go halfway across the tile, just past the contrasting ribbon that goes across the center of the tile.- Tuck the end of each ribbon under the longest contrasting ribbon and hot-glue them into place.
- Have her repeat the cut/glue process with two or three additional pieces of ribbon. She should place them a couple of inches on either side of the first one to create a crisscross pattern with the first set of ribbons.
- Secure the contrasting ribbon on the front of the board with pushpins and turn the cork tile over to hot-glue the end of the ribbon to the back of the tile.
- Next, hot-glue the mirror onto the cork tile in the empty corner of the tile.
- Turn the cork tile over and hot glue a magnetic circle in each corner of the cork tile.
- Turn the tile back over and let your kid use the embellishments to "fancy up" the tile. Hot-glue the embellishments in place as she decides where she wants them.
- Finally, have your kid haul her board to school and put it up in her locker. She can use the ribbons to hold pics of herself and her friends. (And she and her friends can use the mirror to put on lip gloss before they snap all those pics of themselves!)
- If your pushpins are longer than your corkboard is thick, hot-glue two pieces of cork tile together before you glue on the magnets.
- Encourage your kid's altruistic side. Have her craft a goodwill backpack for an underprivileged kid.
Submit!
